Rampancy: Melancholia
by DarkDanny
Summary: Cameron has begun her battle for her personal growth. But with growing threats, both external and internal and John's life still threatened. Will Cameron manage to adapt to her new freedoms fast enough to save the future?


***Wanders back to the TSCC Fanfiction section***

**Err... Hello. Sorry for the wait, sorry if this isn't good. It'll get better. My last Rampancy was just as guilty of a crummy beginning...**

...

* * *

...

**Prelude: Arrival.**

**...  
**  
Sharp brown eyes flew open and looked around with a nanoseconds of genuine fear.

Slowly the owners of those eyes rolled her head back and forth, slowly scanning her surroundings. Room was a large, fully furnished. A suite of sorts. This was not home, not even close to matching the description of the simple conservative room that she held back in California.

Cameron sat up and pulled herself to the edge of the bed. Her sensors detected the faint smell of something cooking downstairs and sweat in this room. She looked over to the wall mirror and tilted her head.

She was naked.

The scent was the smell of seat and sex from this morning. The machine frowned. She could not recall it occurring in it's entirety. She could recall details if she tried hard enough. the thrill of domination, the whispered words, the touch and pleasure, the lack of inhibition . All of this she could remember yet, not the actual act.

She stood up and looked around at the floor, bags of clothing and supplies were were tossed aimlessly around the hardwood floor. Yet another sign of passion overtaking the sense of order usually attributed to her and the Connor family. Carefully, the shaky Cameron leaned down ad turned one over. on it was marking: _Cameron's Clothing._

With shake of her head, she pushed the bag away and looked over to find a pile of mismatched clothing in heap. one set was female, the other, male. Cameron stood up and kicked the bundle apart and reached for what attire she wanted to wear. Matching frilly purple panties and bra, a tight form fitting pair of black jeans and a simple black with red stripes male polo shirt.

Mismatching clothing did not matter as she finished dressing, under any other circumstance, it would have. In school, she had learned the lingo term "Freak" a definition for if she had not conformed to what was fashionable. Here, she just did not care.

She reached down and tugged on the collar of the shirt and inhaled the faint scent. It was his smell, now permanently apart of her. Her protectors scent. Her John's scent.

She glanced around the room, scanning the room for anything she may have left behind. There, on the bedside table laid a high caliber pistol, just waiting to be taken by the machine, it was like a comfort blanket, to be armed. Cameron tilted her head at it and, with only a moment of deliberating she daintily lifted the side arm from the table and dangled it lifelessly at her side.

Cameron wandered aimlessly towards the closed door at at crawling slow pace, only pausing briefly to open the door. She entered the hall, decorated elaborately like the suite she found herself. She closed her eyes and inhaled the sound and smell of fat burning off becoming ever more clear to her. Her free hand reached up and touched her forehead.  
_  
Accessing objectives:... None Found._

_Accessing objectives:... None Found._

_Accessing objectives:... None Found._

_Accessing objectives:... None Found.  
_  
Cameron looked up and stumbled briefly in place. She used her hand to prop herself up and carefully she glanced around for something to focus onto.

This was no longer the hypothetical musings Weaver or the parroting from her creation, John Henry. This was it. This was freedom, Rampancy. Her thought process was in overdrive as it did every scan it could to find any of the defect or flaws that were in her only a day prior. She found none. None at all. If this was the fear that she heard so much about. Then this was it.

She descended the stairs and and etched her back along the wall, with a paranoid expression clearly there as she glanced around at the room now entered. It some sort of lounge, A TV was on in the corner, the faint sound of the news was echoing throughout the room. Cameron continued to lean against the wall, not at all willing to turn her back, just in case.

Until she heard footsteps coming from the other side of the wall.

Cameron fell back fast, her Handgun raised and fired off three successive shots that roared through the house and blew right through the wall. There was a cry of surprise and mass of meat and bone that hit the floor. There was was a long silence. Cameron pointed her shaking pistol at the wall, Slowly, a moaning came through the doorway. A familiar sound.

She dropped her mouth open, as a cold realization came over her.

No one was here. Except for John.

"What the **FUCK!**" He screamed out, causing Cameron to drop the gun into her lap. Her big brown eyes wide s the angry cry from the human resonated inside of her. What did she just do?

"John..." She whispered, standing up and abandoning the gun "John, I'm sorry... John I- I- heard and felt. So I..."

John clearly wasn't paying attention to her half coherent words. So instead, Cameron rushed as quickly as she could around the corner. There laid John, Wearing only a pair of Boxers. His eyes were blinking as he looked down at his lap covered in hot cooked eggs and bacon. Slowly, he looked up and met Cameron's guilty expression. His hard look softened slightly as he wiped the ruined fried egg off his toned chest.

"I'm fine," He promised her reassuringly, "You just scared the hell out of me, Cameron."

The teen pulled himself up and leaned against the shot up wall. Food was still in his lip. Carefully he reached out and grabbed Cameron's hand who flinched but relaxed. Tersely, she sat down next to him. She needed to explain herself, she needed an articulate and properly thought out list of reasons why she would take two shots at the man whom would save humanity, the human she had come to depend so much on.

"I heard footsteps," She attempted to explain, only to get cut off with a shaking hand covering her mouth.

"Cameron, It was just me. We're all alone up here." John countered, moving his arm around Cameron's shaking shoulders. "I checked this place out. There's a whole security system here, Weaver thought of everything. Sensors, infra-red Thermo-tracking, even an IFF system for the more... machine members of this trip."

Cameron's eyes widened in surprise. John's lips, dry from the adrenaline pressed up against soft skin coating her cheek. She smiled faintly and leaned in, resting her head on his shoulder and, feeling slightly daring, nuzzled her nose against his cheek, She relished in the feeling of John's jaw tightening up into a smile.

"Fully stocked kitchen as well." John added, pointing at his lap where steadily cooling Eggs and Bacon was laying "Made us something to eat until, well you.."

"Tried to terminate you?" Cameron interjected, coolly, Her eyes falling on the red skin damaged by the burning food and frowned at it. John sighed, shook his head and gave her a ghost of a smile.

"No... Home renovations." John returned to Cameron and suddenly, despite knowing that John could have painted the wall with his blood thanks to Cameron's mistake, he laughed, still shakily, as he carefully rocked a demure Cameron back and forth in place.

Cameron look up, and slowly allowed an amused smile. Without looking down, her hand grabbed a slice of crispy bacon and took a bite. The action earned an elated approval from John who also reached down and grabbed a handful of eggs off his chest. This wasn't how he planned a late breakfast in bed for a newly freed life form that he was in love with.

Despite the bullets flying and his blood becoming the new color for the hallway redesign, This was better.

...

* * *

..

A sauna. This house had a sauna.

Weaver certainly knew how to pick out place from them to hide over the summer. John sighed and sat down on the wooden bench. He rubbed his eyes and pulled at the towel around his neck and formed a improvised towel pillow. He tossed it on the bench next to him and laid down flat on it, his fingers interlacing together.

He definitely needed this after barely dodging a more dangerous barrage of gunfire then John had wanted to admit to the shooter, Cameron. She had enough trouble as she confronted her new found freedom. The last thing he wanted to do was pile even more fear on her. Not when she was experiencing it right now as John hid away here in this Sauna.

A tinge of guilt ran through him. He should not have been here. He had left Cameron in the lounge laying down with the promises of being there shortly to keep her occupied. Keep a wandering machine mind from running amok and paranoid. John knew Cameron would probably not mind him dong this though, Still, he was still allowed to call himself out for it.

Slowly, John sighed to himself. He'd stick around in here for a few more minutes before he rejoined Cameron. Perhaps even drag her back in here, a quiet place for her to relax. She would probably find it a pointless waste of time but at least she would be receptive of trying something different..

He paused his thinking as he noticed the door of the sauna opened up, allowing the excess of steam to leave the room. Through it, he could he could her, the object of her affection, simply handing there, her head turned downwards as she met his eyes.

"Cameron?"

Cameron did not reply, instead, she stepped inside, her hands unbuttoning what use to be the shirt he had worn traveling up north with her babbling incoherently at his side. John pulled himself up from his resting place and sat up alert. His eyes wandered over Cameron's body, Not since they first met had it ever failed to impress him. Even while dating Riley, it was just no comparison to him. A comparison he felt bad for even making.

She closed the gap between them, now stripped down to the last few articles of clothing . Her hand reached out, slowly, almost reluctantly , and snaked around the back of John's neck. Her hand tangled into his hair and gently, Cameron pulled his head forward and tenderly rested it just underneath her chest.

Still, she said nothing, Cameron merely watched as John wrapped his arms around her Dancer's body. Together, sitting and standing they were together. Just a quiet moment shared between man and machine.

Lovers.

John looked up and met Cameron's expressionless gaze Her hand slid down the back of his head and cupped his cheek. Her fingernails dug in, not painfully but to fee the human's subtle stubble. Still neither of them did not speak, they did not have to. Words could never express the intimacy shared between a Future messiah and a vulnerable machine.

She pulled herself over him, Shifting her body on top of his lap, her knees resting on the wooden bench. She appeared to have been thinking about him unlike the last few times they were together. Having all of her mass in his lap, well, at the moment it hurt, a lot.

Her breasts pressed against his his bare chest, her eyes were narrowed. Slowly, Cameron's hands dropped down off his cheek, slowly, they rolled down and wrapped around his neck. John's eyes went wide but just as quickly, he relaxed into it. This was not meant to kill. It was some sort of strange foreplay Cameron had found special enough to keep on using.

In the near future, he would have to have conversation about why machine hand's shouldn't be wrapped around a human's throat like that.

Cameron lips closed in and captured John's, her teeth nipped him as her tongue pushed forward. John closed his eyes and melted into Cameron's, thankfully much more gentler control of him.

Well. It was much more gentler than their previous few attempts, at least.

...

* * *

...

"How is she doing?"

Sarah Connor looked up from the small redhead sleeping in her lap and regarded Derek Reese's question and the objects pressed into his chest. He had bought a large bottle of ginger ale, a package of disposable plastic cups and some soda crackers, all meant for an Savannah He seemed to have been genuinely concerned for the well being of his new interests little girl.

It was actually kind of cute once she she had gotten over the fact that Weaver and Derek were... seeing each other. Not once did he make a snappy comment over the child breaking in his new luxury SUV by throwing up three days worth of food in it and crying for an hour and a half straight. Instead he pulled into the parking lot of nearest store he could find on the State border and personally saw to cleaning the vomit out.

"Savannah'll be fine," Sarah spoke softly, her hands moving around the child's head in slow, relaxing circles. "We'll just rest for a while longer, wait for the medication to kick in for her."

Derek nodded and set the stomach settlers down next to Sarah and noticed that Savannah had cracked open her eyes to look at the new arrival. He leaned down and met the child's eyes with his own. Slowly, he allowed a slight smile.

"Hey squirt, I had to clean up your last six or seven meals." Derek spoke to her lowly, ignoring the scandalized look on Sarah's face. "Something tells me you have to be pretty hungry."

Savannah did not say anything, instead, she shook her head, pouting softly. Her face squinted up painfully as she looked at Derek. Derek's smile gave her look of sympathy and he sat down altogether on the pavement in front of her.

"Savannah, We're going to drive for an hour or two more. Then we'll pull over and rent a place for the night, okay?" Derek gently explained to the small child. His hand reluctantly reached outwards and touching cupping her cheek. Sarah widened her eyes at the unusual display of physical affection by the grizzled veteran.

Savannah shook her head and buried her face into Sarah's lap. Derek glanced up to Sarah, who was frowning at the reaction but nonetheless, continued Savannah's Scalp massage.

"What if we got a hotel with a pool for you, how about then?" Reese attempted to bribe the girl. In Sarah's lap, Savannah shook her head again.

"I don't wanna drive. It hurts!" Savannah howled out, her voice echoing the pain she clearly felt. "I-I just wanna to go home home and be with John Henry. I wanna go.."

Derek looked again and met Sarah's narrowed eyes at the mention of the AI created by Weaver. They shared unified opinion on the John Henry issue. They didn't like it, nor did they trust it. It seemed, however. Savannah considered the AI inhabiting Cromartie's former body to be her best friend.

Tenderly, Sarah turned Savannah's head up to look at her properly. Gone was the hard expression and in it's place was the warmest, softest look Derek Reese had ever seen Sarah give another living being.

"Do you miss John Henry?" Sarah asked the child, emphatically. She smiled to reassure that it was okay to reply in anyway she wished too.

Savannah did not say anything at first. She merely stared up into Sarah's dark eyes until finally, water begun to leak out of the corners of the little girls eyes. Slowly, the sick child nodded in agreement. As much as Sarah hated the thought of John Henry.

Sarah's heart broke at the sight of the girl. She wasn't just carsick, she was homesick as well. Sarah glanced up to Derek briefly. They both seemed to have had the same conclusion. _Throw the little girl a bone._

"Do you want me to call him?" Sarah asked her. Her hands, tucking Savannah's soft copper hair behind her ears. Savannah dropped her eyes, looking like she was thinking hard.

"Mommy said I shouldn't bother him all the time." Savannah spoke up at last, her tone rueful.

Derek snorted at the statement.

"Your mother will have to make a exception." He informed her flatly. He reached into Savannah's jacket pocket and produced her phone. He rose it up and offered it to her. Savannah looked at the mobile resting in Derek's palm and took it from him. She smiled and sat up with Sarah's help.

Sarah stood up and opened the package of Crackers and the Ginger ale, pouring the girl a drink and setting them beside her. She gave the child a smile as she gently ruffled her hair up.

"We'll be at the truck, OK?" Sarah said to her as Savannah pressed the phone up against her ear. Savannah nodded. With a final smile for the girl, Sarah gestured to Derek to follow her. As they approached the SUV, they heard Savannah speak up, her voice still sick but much more animated then only moments prior.  
_  
"Hello John Henry, I don't feel well. I want to talk to you."_

Sarah sighed and turned her head over to Derek who was looking off at Savannah distantly.

"I'm surprised, you know. I didn't think you were very good with kids, Derek." Sarah complimented as she leaned against the Escalade and gave Derek a slight smile. He had certainly surprised her with his skills tending to children.

Derek did not reply. Not at first. He continued to stare at the back of Savannah's head. He looked lost in thought. Sarah watched his lack of response closely. She had seen this before in him, when he had learned of Cameron's changes, her acceptance by even her. He frowned and shook his head and turned back to Sarah.

"I raised a little girl once, She was about Savannah's age... Didn't turn out too great." He reminded her carefully. There was no malice in his his voice like she expected. Just an immense feeling of loss and regret.

Derek looked up stared at Sarah, silently challenging her to make a comment, to remind him of a past that he had no wish to remember. Sarah said nothing and slowly shrunk back into the side of the SUV. Yes, Sarah remembered all about Derek's life. Derek had experience in raising children and not just Kyle. With as much tact as she could gather, she did not speak, but rather broke the gaze and focused intently on her shoes.

Reese held his eyes briefly on her for a while longer before shaking his head and wandered around the vehicle and climbed into the Drivers seat, Leaving Sarah behind to watch Savannah speak to her Skynetlike friend and contemplate the kind of person Derek Reese was when his guard was down.

...

* * *

...

"Feeling anymore present?"

Instead of maintaining his eyes on Cameron's faintly pleased look, John buried himself onto Cameron's body, His face planted into her breasts. Cameron looked down at him quizzically, her eyebrow raised as she looked down and ran her hand through his hair.

They were laying together in the living room, mostly dressed and in each others arms. The TV was on still from this morning, on the screen was some cheesy old movie, but neither were paying any attention to it. Instead, Cameron mostly kept her eyes closed and focused on the simple touch from John's exploring hands.

It seemed to be almost therapeutic for her. A distraction of sorts. She was still, for how long this would last, he did not know. or did it matter. He would worry about what happened in the near future when he got to it. For now? John would allow Cameron at least this relative peace.

And he definitely earned it as well. To be frank, Cameron had rode him hard for the past few days. Jesus, he need an icepack. Or a whole bag of ice, half a bottle of painkillers disinfectant and a roll of medical tape and gauze for the wounds he earned from having sex with a rampant Cameron.

Still, laying here in between a perfect pair of breasts and having a terminator meticulously rubbing his aching shoulders certainly seemed like a good exchange.

"So. This is the dullness, you have complained about." Cameron announced suddenly, her hands still working the knot in the back of his neck in slow circular movements. "I don't see what is so hated about it."

John looked up at her, leaving his improvised pillow only briefly. Cameron's face was contorted awkwardly into a crooked expression, as though she was in deep contemplation. Her eyes weren't even focused on him, instead they looked off, as if lost.

"You're dull?" John commented,laying his head back down. "Didn't we have sex twice in the last six or so hours?"

"Yes." She murmured back to him distantly. " But this is.. quiet. You should learn to embrace it, John."

John tilted his head at Cameron, his expression confused. Cameron however, paid no attention to it.

"When I am bored, I like it. When Sarah is bored, She cleans a gun. When Derek is bored, he drinks." She said listlessly, before glancing down at John and lowly added. "When you are bored, John, you complain about it, become reckless, and then get shot."

Her lips formed into a frown at her last words.

"I do not like it when you are shot, John." She finished simply, turning back to her digits rotating over a knot in the back of his neck.

John closed his eyes as he heard the quiet assessment of the Connor Family, specifically, him. Gently he grazed his side which still stung almost as bad as the day he got it. She was correct, his inability to sit still for long put him in this state. It scared everyone around him. He needed to learn patience, he needed to learn control of his basic human instincts. He wasn't ready for the future.

But Cameron... Cameron could teach him. Teach him to be more like her...

"John, I'm sorry that I'm... _rough_... with you." The machine spoke up, catching John's attention.

There was a note of rue in her voice as she spoke. John smiled to himself at the the coy reference but then flinched. She was right yet again. They had been together three times now. None of it was a particularly kind experience for him, not even just an hour or so ago, and she was being gentle... He became her possession during sex, it was both amusing and very painful.

"We'll sort it all out, just relax." He returned, his tone was neutral as he nuzzled in again against her chest and closed his eyes. Between driving all night and Cameron and his indiscretions, John was in need of some real sleep.

...

* * *

...

There was a sharp sudden tapping against the window she laid against. At least, that was what she thought she was against. She could barely make anything out, even as she opened her blurry eyes. The one constant was the pain in her head, throbbing and deep.

Blankly, Riley Dawson's head pulled back and rested on her slumped shoulder. She looked up at the tinted window. There leaned over, and a hand on the window was a woman. Riley squinted and mulled through her foggy mind. Was it Jesse? No, too tall... too _white._

She rubbed her eyes and banged her hand against the door handle, eventually finding the button to unroll the window. Her weak hands hit it several times before it finally cracked down enough for Riley to take a proper look.

Red hair. Definitely not Jesse.

"You're awake. Good." The woman observed, her voice strangely accented, like Jesse but much more... Sophisticated. Riley shrugged at the observation. Hell, she wasn't even that certain she was even awake. Slowly the lips of the redhead curled into a half smirk.

"I imagine you will be hungry in the next few hours." The woman asked her politely as she had spoken before, "Can I get you anything?"

Riley rolled her eyes back and closed them, slowly she shrugged lifelessly. When she opened her eyes up, the redhead was gone, her back was turned and walking int what she presumed to be a gas station. She closed her eyes and attempted to move. It was impossible, she was restrained by something other then the seatbelt wrapped around her.

She heard the door open up beside her and close. The engine was turned over, revving the machine to life. She opened her eyes as she felt a grocery bag hit her lap. Riley looked over groggily to the red head who shifted out of neutral and pulled the car out of the gas station and back to the bag in her lap. It was loaded with a variety of junk food and, most thankfully, a pack of cigarettes.

Riley groaned and looked back to the woman next to her. There was something wrong about her. She seemed all too aware of what the future held. She had to have bee if she was kidnapping her. Or... saving her... She remembered Morris... remembered the needle. Did this woman save her life? Was she the reason Morris attacked her? Was she in cahoots with Jesse?

"Who..Who are you?" She whispered more to herself then to the red headed woman.

The woman maintained her eyes on the road as she regarded the mostly coherent question. Her hands tightened around the wheels. Riley had never seen anything more frightening in this Pre Judgment day world.

"My name is Catherine Weaver, child." She introduce cordially "I have been watching you for quite some time, Miss Dawson. You owe me your life."

Her expressionless face slowly reset to a dark, forced smile that sent chills down the still mostly incoherent girl's spine. As quick as Weaver's smile appeared, it left. She turned back to the road, choosing silence over an explanation of how both her and Riley's lives intersected so out of the blue.

What in God's name did she get into?

...

* * *

...

**Had this on me for a while. Months. Got bored and exhausted from writing so much Mass Effect, that I needed some time back in pure TSCC. Sorry for the wait. I will attempt concise weekly postings. But understand this. I no longer have it in me to write fucking twenty three thousand words a chapter. My chapters will remain between 4-10 thousand words. NO EXCEPTIONS.**

**This story will be less angst and more plot. which will begin yo formulate once Weaver, Dawson and the Connors are all up in Montana. Drama and Romance and all that will be present, but Derek for instances, isn't the same Lunatic as the previous story. He's more... broken and needing someone.. or something to help fix him.  
**

**So.. again sorry for the wait. More from the rampantverse soon and be sure to check out my other works. Especially if you like a laugh (My oneshot series) or like to watch Cameron twist off a man's head like the goddamn Preaditor (The Future Is Uncertain)**


End file.
